Derek Jeter Contract Details

When the Yankees and Derek Jeter agreed to their new contract, we heard about a deal that included contract incentives and deferred money, but weren’t quite sure how everything would work. Thankfully, Ken Davidoff has the details (no subs. req’d). Jeter will earn $15M in base salary in 2011 with $2M being deferred, $16M in 2012 (another $2M deferred), and then $17M in 2013 ($3M deferred). That’s the easy part.

The incentives can be triggered in any season covered by the deal, including the player option for 2014, though the salary increase will only be applied to that 2014 season. Jeter would get $4M for winning MVP, $2M for finishing second through sixth in the MVP voting, $1.5M for a Silver Slugger, and then $500,000 each for a Gold Glove, LCS MVP, and World Series MVP. The incentives are capped at $9M, however. He could win MVP, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, LCS and World Series MVP in all four years of the contract, but he’d still only take home $9M extra.

It seems like a team friendly deal on the surface since Jeter is unlikely to reach any of the MVP-based incentives (he has just two top six MVP finishes in the last eleven seasons), but it’s still an overpay in terms of expected production. Either way, it could have been worse. A lot worse.

If KLong can get him back to .300, then we should all be happy with that. Fielding as a SS will inevitably decline-yes-even further.

Also any brilliant strategy to decrease his gidp’s would be helpful.

whozat

It’s more important that he get his OBP back up to .370 or so and regain his doubles power, at least.

hitting .300/.330/.360 with a bunch of DPs and declining defense won’t be particularly useful.

Ed

Fielding as a SS will inevitably decline-yes-even further.

You do realize that his fielding has improved drastically over the past few years, right?

whozat

Well, really, he had an outlier of a year in 2009 and managed to get back to merely below average. Thinking that’s some kind of trend is absurd. The man is in his late 30s. Merely avoiding a precipitous decline would be a huge, unexpected, win. Expecting a sustained improvement is irrational.

whozat

sorry, managed to get back to merely below average *in 2010*

Ed

2008 was essentially average, 2009 was well above average, and 2010 fell around the 40th percentile range, which is perfectly fine. Go back before that and he was horrendous, with some years way down at the bottom.

Don’t forget that when the uptick started, Cashman had asked him to work on his defense, causing him to start heavy offseason workouts aimed at improving his defense. He also started positioning himself differently on the field.

Yeah, I get that he’s a late 30s shortstop, which means he’s not likely to be good. But let’s not ignore that he’s worked hard to fix the things he did wrong earlier in his career. A lot of his early career bad defense was simply because he always played too shallow, which he doesn’t do anymore. That alone is enough of a change that you can’t directly compare his current defense to his early career defense.

MikeD

He makes a valid point, though, that’s been lost. Jeter’s overall fielding hasn’t decreased at all, and we can’t refer to a single season as an outlier since it’s recommended that defensive statistics be viewed in three-year sets to have meaning. We only now can view Jeter’s most recent defense by looking at years ’08-’10.

As noted, no one should expect improvement, certainly not at his age (even though he did unexpectedly improve from his age 34-36 seasons), so the hope is he doesn’t suffer a huge decline that offsets what value he provides with the bat. Jeter’s value is in his entire game, heavily driven by the offensive side. He needs to bounce back with the bat to have upside. Hopefully, he can maintain a positive WAR the next three years.

bpttom line

Not clear on 2014 terms. Does Jeter have control of option? Or does he have to meet certain targets? Can Yanks buy out option– for how much?

Plank

Jeter has option for 2014. Yankees can buy it out for $3M.

Ed

The buyout is what Jeter gets if he turns down the option. The team doesn’t have any say in it.

Doug

it’s a player option. if jeter selects, he gets $8M guaranteed + up to the $9M in incentives. if he declines, he gets $3M.

so, he’s guaranteed 3/51 or 4/56, but it could go up to 4/65

AndrewYF

Basically, if he feels he can make more than $5M in 2014, he’s going to decline the option, and force the Yankees to pay him another $50M.

MikeD

I hope he achieves all nine million. The Gold Glove wins will mean nothing if they continue, but finishing high in the MVP voting, and winning the Silver Slugger, means he’s been highly productive. Winning the MVP in the World Series will say it all.

Plank

I’m curious about how long the deferred salary is deferred. If it is until 2015, that is a lot different than if it is deferred until 2050.

The 3 year portion is not bad but the $3 million buyout if player rejects option is where this deal is far from team friendly!

whozat

Really? 3mm four years from now makes the deal “far from team friendly”? That’s chump change to the Yanks.

CBean

This was all, honestly, less than I expected the Yankees would end up paying.

nathan

What do they say.. yeah, flushing down the drain

Beachbum

It’s interesting that he has no incentive for 3,000 hits. Clearly must have been on everyone’s mind and intentionally avoided – – perhaps to avoid looking like Arod. It is more of a “personal” milestone, whereas the others arguably all reward production that is more beneficial to the team over a season.

Mike HC

I believe that ARod got special permission for his homerun milestones. And they also bullshitted the contract language so the incentives were really for things like media appearances and press events tied to the homeruns. I guess they could have done the same with Jeter but obviously didn’t want to do that, for whatever reason.

bottom line

Continuing discussion from prior thread:

If Yanks fail to sign Lee, I would NOT surrender farm to find replacement. Specifically, I would not trade Montero, Banuelos or Betances. (I might trade Brackman but his value is lower, in part becuase of his contract).

Here’s why I would not rush to trade:

1- Cash, for all his virtues, has poor history in trades for pitching. I suspect this is because pitchers don’t become available unless their team knows something — that would be something Cash likely does not know, Some arm soreness that begins to crop up, for example, even though it does not result in missed starts.

2- If MLB expands to two wild cards, Yanks can lay back first half of season. They have enough young mound talen that they can pretty much count on some help (Brack, Warren, Noesi, Nova, Phelps) by the middle of the year. So while they might struggle early, they have the farm talent and lineup to still get in an expanded playoff format.

3- The Red Sox now lean heavily lefty. Under no circumstances, should NY trade a talented lefty starter prospect like Banuelos. In fact, I really like the idea of three lefties in the rotation to counter Boston’s new lineup.

4- With all due trespectz to Jay Buhner, Montero is simply the best slugging prpsect the Yankees have had since — sorry, but I have to say it — the Mick himself. That’s 60 years. Why would you trade a guy like that? It might cost $20 million a year to find that sort of power on the open market.

5– Though I realize, the odds are against pitching prospects, I think there’s a pretty good chance the Killer B’s could wind up yielding one very good starter and one good late inning reiever. I like Banuelos as a starter and like chances of Brack or Betances in pen.

Having said all that, I would not object to trading some of lesser — but still very good — young mound talent. Nova, Noesi,Warren, even Stoneburner could be made available. But I simply don’t think we should make a panicky deal, especially when other teams would be lying in wait to fleece a desperate NY team.

Of course, the best thing would be to sign Lee.

king of fruitless hypotheticals

Of course, the best thing would be to sign Leepost in the proper thread.

vin

You should post this in the previous thread then. The people who are interested in that conversation will stick around and discuss it there. Keeps things a bit tidier.

tomaconda

He could win MVP, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, LCS and World Series MVP in all four years of the contract, but he’d still only take home $9M extra.

Of course if this happens Jeter turns down the option and signs a new 5 year 150,000,000 dollar contract.

Mike HC

Playoff bonuses too. I wonder if that gets taken into account during contract negotiations for free agents.

Basically, the BBWAA made a rule starting in 2013 that any player with contract incentives based on BBWWAA awards, or standings in those awards, is no longer eligible for those awards. This was after some Boston writer voted Curt Schilling a third place Cy Young vote just so he’d hit some contract incentive about placing in the CY Young vote…

Therefore, wouldn’t only the 2011 and 2012 BBWAA awards count potentially count towards the incentives, while working to automatically disqualify Jeter from any awards in 2013 and 2014 if that option is picked up?

EndlessMike

Jeter name and MVP is funny. The closrest he ever got to an MVP was 06′ and he still wasn’t that great.

Slugger27

huh? 13 months ago he was a 7 win player and finished 2nd.

::scratches head::

Slugger27

it was him or tex that finished 2nd, i forgot… either way, he was very much a candidate, so endlessmike’s post is a bit puzzling

CountZero

Huh? A 132 OPS+ and 34 SB from your SS isn’t “that great?” A 6.3 WAR isn’t that great?

The writers robbed him of the MVP that year by giving it to Morneau and his 3.8 WAR.

I agree that DJ isn’t likely to be in many MVP discussions going forward, but to say he “wasn’t that great” in 2006 is all kinds of ignorant.

Hughesus Christo

Teh dingers

Monteroisdinero

Wonder if Jeter will end up with the same stance that Long put in place for ARod and Swish. Identical setup from the right side with the bat on the shoulder and no movement. All forward movement-locked and loaded.

Elvin

I’m sorry for the people that expected Derek Jeter to be perfect all of his career. So 2010 wasn’t a Derek Jeter-like year. So what? For the ones that think hes not worth it anymore, pull yourselves together. His numbers will show up again. He is a .314 lifetime hitter, numbers don’t lie. Besides, it’s not like he hit under .200, he still managed to maintain an average of .270. I expect him to hit like usual next year, I still have confidence in him. There’s a reason he will reach 3,000 hits next year. And for those of you that trash his defense all of the time, he is a 5-time gold glover. That’s all there is to say about that.

Kiko Jones

“…it could have been worse. A lot worse.”

Um, except that when you have leverage on your side as the Yankees had, it should not have gotten to “bad” let alone “worse”.

Elvin

You know what, I think the best thing to do is to watch this all play out. I mean, we can sit here and bring up how bad the contract is, or how worse it could’ve become. Bottomline is, there was no better option at shortstop for the Yankees, so they had to come to an agreement with Derek Jeter. And an agreement is something that takes two sides, not just one. And this is what it took to come to an agreement. Trust Derek Jeter, support him no matter what, because we don’t know how much struggle is left in him, but what we do know, is that he is still going to do great things.